Unfiltered negative feedback is the best positive feedback.
Negative feedback is a gift, an act of love and respect.
Tell me the worst.
Tell it to my face.
I will love you for it.
When someone gives me a compliment, I appreciate it. Don’t get me wrong, I like hearing that I did something good. But, I don’t find compliments actionable. Other than saying, “Thank you,” I don’t know what to do with the compliment.
Negative feedback to my face? Bring it. Negative feedback is information. Negative feedback is actionable. It’s knowledge I didn’t have before. It’s information I couldn’t see for myself. It’s invaluable. It’s a moment of enlightenment to me. There’s something I can get to work on. Someone’s telling me something that’s going to make me better? Bring it. What a gift. Now, there’s something I can sink my teeth into. When I receive negative feedback, I drink it in. I ask for more. It’s intel I want and I crave.
I view negative feedback as an act of courage and an act of love.
Give me the person who pulls me aside privately to tell me about the spinach in my teeth, over the person who remains silent and lets me continue to embarrass myself in public. Or, worse, someone who whispers behind my back about the spinach in my teeth instead of (or before) telling me.
As humans, we are wired to please others around us. Nobody likes to hurt someone else’s feelings. So, it’s hard to say something negative to someone without feeling like we’re being harsh or feeling hypocritical (we all have faults, after all). We worry whether we will burn bridges in the process. We worry whether we will be misconstrued.
Unfiltered, private, courteous negative feedback is an art form. It says a lot about the character of the person who gives it. When you pull someone aside, when you speak up to tell them how they can be better, when you do it in private, when you do it with unfailing courtesy, when you do it with respect and love for the recipient, it’s an art form. It’s a thing of beauty. It takes emotional intelligence to hold a mirror up to someone’s face. It takes courage on your part. It means that you are not indifferent to the recipient of that feedback. It means that you care so much about them that you’re willing to take the risk of saying something that might hurt them. It takes confidence in the relationship to speak up, the confidence that you will not be misunderstood, that your intent will not be mistaken. It also takes confidence in your own character to provide negative feedback directly to someone. It takes guts and integrity to speak to someone to their face, instead of speaking about someone behind their back.
When a person gives me unfiltered negative feedback, I have enormous respect for them. My trust and belief in them, and my gratitude in that moment, goes through the roof, with a feeling of, “I want to do better for you.” I find it moving that someone would take the time, out of their day, to tell me how I can be better, and to do it with so much respect and courtesy.
Unfiltered negative feedback is also an act of respect for the other’s person’s intelligence, maturity, self-awareness, and ability to evolve. We’ve all met people who bristle at negative feedback, who become defensive because they feel threatened to confront their weaknesses, rather than feeling enlightened by the new knowledge.
The same thing applies to product development. The users who give you unfiltered negative feedback are your allies. They are the product’s best friends. They are the ones who are telling you, “Fix it! Fix it!” in an unmistakable way. They are passionate about the product. They are your die-hard users. They want the product. They just want it to be better. They care. Their feedback matters, and is more actionable than the bland, “Great job!” that you might get from casual users.
Negative feedback can be the source of your personal and professional growth if you run towards it, if you welcome it, if you embrace it, if you seek it. It can also be a source of reassurance to realize that there are people in the world who have your back, who can give you the gift of seeing yourself as others see you, who will tell you about the spinach in your teeth, who will not stand by and let you hurt yourself, who believe you can be better, and who can’t wait to see it.
Negative feedback is a gift of love and respect.
Negative feedback is the best positive feedback.
